Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday July 30, 2014 @07:57AM
from the i-buy-a-car-every-time-i-want-to-steal-some-music dept.

Lucas123 writes: The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies is suing Ford and General Motors for millions of dollars over alleged copyrights infringement violations because their vehicles' CD players can rip music to infotainment center hard drives. The AARC claims in its filing (PDF) that the CD player's ability to copy music violates the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. The Act protects against distributing digital audio recording devices whose primary purpose is to rip copyrighted material. For example, Ford's owner's manual explains, "Your mobile media navigation system has a Jukebox which allows you to save desired tracks or CDs to the hard drive for later access. The hard drive can store up to 10GB (164 hours; approximately 2,472 tracks) of music." The AARC wants $2,500 for each digital audio recording device installed in a vehicle, the amount it says should have been paid in royalties.

They went to the trouble of selecting The Coraline Theme [wordpress.com]. That shows they have some dedication. The nefarious threat of having the power of a $40 mp3 player built in to vehicles should be reckoned with and you have to applaud them for choosing Wordpress for their method to do so.

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of blank CDs and personal audio devices, media centers, satellite radio devices, and car audio systems that have recording capabilities, to its 142,000+ members worldwide.

And today's version:

AARC provides a music royalty, generated by the sales of automobile infotainment systems, blank CDs, personal audio devices, media centers, and satellite radio devices that have music recording capabilities, to its 300,000+ members worldwide.

I wonder, do they think if they add something to the intro of their terrible, terrible website*, it means they can start collecting royalties on it?

* as the creator and admin of several terrible websites, I know bad when I see it.

If you don't own the CD you're ripping, it's obviously illegal. I think a personal copy should be allowed as backup since music CDs do get lost or damaged. Some countries allow a backup (provided you own the CD you are ripping), others don't.

USA:

U.S. copyright law generally says that making a copy of an original work, if conducted without the consent of the copyright owner, is infringement. The law makes no explicit grant or denial of a right to make a "personal use" copy of another's copyrighted content on one's own digital media and devices.

Europe:

A directive of the European Union allows its member nations to instate in their legal framework a private copy exception to the authors and editors rights.... In all but a few of these countries, the levy is excised on all the machines and blank materials capable of copying copyrighted works.

The AHRA enacted the royalty payment requirement by prohibiting the importation and distribution, or manufacture and distribution, of any DARD [digital audio recording device] without first filing a notice with the Register of Copyrights, depositing quarterly and annual statements of account,
and making royalty payments.

Under the plain meaning of the Act's definition of digital audio recording devices, computers (and their hard drives) are not digital audio recording devices because their "primary purpose" is not to make digital audio copied recordings. . . the fact that the Rio does not permit such further copies to be made because it simply cannot download or transmit the files that it stores to any other device. Thus, the Rio without SCMS inherently allows less copying than SCMS permits. . . [t]he purpose of [the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use.

The way I read it, Diamond was covered in 3 ways. It was not a DARD according to the Act as the primary purpose was not to make copies. Second, it does not allow copies to be redistributed to other devices as it didn't have the capability to transmit to any other device. Third, it was for private, noncommercial use.

For the first one, GM and Ford has to show that their players' primary purpose is not to make copies. Marketed as infotaiment systems, they can show that multi-faceted purposes of GPS navigation, radio (satellite and terrestrial), hands-free phone connectors, email, etc. The other two are obvious. Lastly, Ford and GM could be dismissed from the suit as they didn't manufacture the systems but bought them and used them.

When the AHRA was talking about DARDs, they were thinking DAT and to a lesser extent MiniDisc, not CDs or MP3s. So, the RIAA's gamble was that they were trying to get the Rio PMP300 treated like a DAT device, which failed because it's not an audio recorder. You couldn't use a line-in jack to record MP3s to that thing.

What boggles me is that the parallel out jack on the PMP300 doesn't constitute transmission. Eh, wtf.

The Letter of the law though, on what is a DARD is quite clear:

(3) A "digital audio recording device" is any machine or device of a type commonly distributed to individuals for use by individuals, whether or not included with or as part of some other machine or device, the digital recording function of which is designed or marketed for the primary purpose of, and that is capable of, making a digital audio copied recording for private use, except forâ"

If you are *truly* cynical and/or paranoid, one would almost think that GM set up the lawsuit to further enshrine precedent. Not hard to imagine GM lawyers getting a whiff that the RIAA might be contemplating action, so they find some poor underfunded schmucks to sue them first so they can smack them down hard and discourage well-funded schmucks.

If the royalties they get is over a dollar for every track, I guess we are blessed that digital music stores can sell tracks for under that. The iTunes store is truly benevolent for giving away money...

I'm sure GM and Ford have better lawyers, and I imagine they have more resources to throw at the affair as well. I also imagine that GM and Ford will team up for their defense, and make AARC cry.
GM and Ford's lawyers signed off on the system before it was even developed, let alone installed in cars. The AARC is going to waste millions and go home with nothing.

I'm pretty sure that GM, Ford, Chrysler, and all the Japanese automakers will team up for this one, simply because they're not using the same system in the JP models, doesn't mean they won't in the future.

They don't even need better lawyers. They need one paralegal that can search American Law Review, where this was already decided in 1999 in the case of RIAA v Diamond Multimedia [wikipedia.org] - the landmark case that makes all portable MP3 players legal under the "space shifting" provision of the Audio Home Recording Act.

There's a reason why the RIAA hasn't tried this shit since that decision - they already failed in circuit court, and on appeal. Does anyone really think they didn't want a piece of the iPod market?

See, it doesn't apply here because the express intent of the device n the car is to record music.

However, this part may apply:"Because no additional copies can be made from the Rio, the Rio makes less copies than the SCMS would permit."Can you copy music from the Cars device? If not, they got nothing. If you can, then you may have an issue.

they already bought the Music CD so the owner of these CD ripping automobiles are not stealing the music, and they are not capable of sharing those ripped CDs on the internet, it is just making it easier and safer for the driver because they can pay more attention to driving and not fumbling around with a CD collection while driving

I don't even know how you would violate the law with this thing. It'd probably involve a custom firmware.

Person A buys a hot new CD and lends it to Person B. Person B puts it in their car and rips it to the car's hard drive. Person B then returns the disc to Person A. Repeat both ways and with a dozen other people.

All that being said, though, this doesn't make the in-car ripping illegal. You could do the same thing with any computer with a CD or DVD drive. I could lend you a CD and you could rip it - k

It is considered "Fair Use" as defined in Sony v Universal (the Betamax decision). Because it's private use, and is only considered "place shifting", there is no copyright infringement to be found unless you redistribute the shifted media.

You can do illegal things with a pen and a piece of paper, or a kitchen knife, or any computer, tablet, or cell phone. It is not the responsibility of the manufacturer to attempt to engineer a product that it is impossible to use for an illegal purpose. There is a legitimate use for what Ford and GM has done - people who own music on one media format can time-shift that music for later playback with less manual handling of physical media which is dangerous while driving.

I'm actually surprised people still have CDs. My first gen ipod touch is smaller than a CD box and fits much more, plus I can easily change the contents when I bring it back home for a recharge/sync. For the record, still lasts about 10 days of playback in the car (omg battery not replaceable!).

While it's getting better, MP3s you legally buy have relatively low bitrates. With a CD, I can rip based on my requirements and limitations. For example, I can determine if space or quality is more important, given the storage size and qualities of my speakers. I still buy CDs to have a physical back-up in case of HD failure, and to be able to rip to a newer technology in the future.

they already bought the Music CD so the owner of these CD ripping automobiles are not stealing the music, and they are not capable of sharing those ripped CDs on the internet, it is just making it easier and safer for the driver because they can pay more attention to driving and not fumbling around with a CD collection while driving

No, you're not thinking about this the right way! Clearly people are buying these cars and then selling them pre-loaded with the music on them. The music is clearly worth more than the cars, so it's all a clever infringement scheme./s

The summary said that the system could hold about 2,472 tracks of music. Since copyright law grants infringement penalties starting at $750, this makes a system full of music "worth" $1,854,000. Of course, the maximum is $150,000 so clearly this is costing the recording industry $370,800,000 per car sold with the system!

they already bought the Music CD so the owner of these CD ripping automobiles are not stealing the music, and they are not capable of sharing those ripped CDs on the internet, it is just making it easier and safer for the driver because they can pay more attention to driving and not fumbling around with a CD collection while driving

Right...instead they can fumble around with ripping their CDs while driving...no doubt much safer:-)

Sorry, what license? I didn't see any license in my CD. I bought a CD. With music on it. Music protected by Copyright Law, which states, mainly, that I can't redistribute that music without permission. Whether copying those tracks to a hard drive for convenience counts as redistribution, or some other fine print part of the law in question forbids it for some reason is debatable, but there's no "license" here. I haven't signed anything, nor even had anything given for reading.

Unlike EULAs which you have to agree to, the license is implied as per copyright law. But copyright law as well as court cases have allowed for "time shifting" (Betamax decision) as well as "space shifting" (RIAA vs Diamond).

So any ripping of CDs to MP3 format (or any other format) is illegal also? (We'll keep things simple by assuming you don't share these rips out with anyone.) When I ripped my CD collection to MP3 so that I could play it on my computer, I was breaking the law? I guess I need to pay at least $750 per song ripped. Half a million ought to cover it.

Perhaps you are based somewhere other than the United States where ripping is illegal, but in the US (where this lawsuit seems to be based) it has been accepted f

In the UK there is still no private copying exemption from the Digital Economy Act and other related copyright law, despite recommendations to do so.

There was supposed to be some progress on implementing this very recently, but it seems to have faded out for reasons I haven't yet been able to identify. I couldn't find any relevant Parliamentary debates over the past few weeks and the House of Commons has now risen for the summer and won't be back until September, so maybe they just ran out of time to schedule it. However, I'm not sure whether the House needs to be sitting for the remaining work to be completed or whether the primary legislation has alre

So, rather than take your new car out and get it dirty, you run it through the replicator to make a working copy for day-to-day driving and keep the original in the garage. While your at it, you make another copy for your Significant Other so that they can (according to their inclination) fill up the footwells with high-heeled shoes and/or dismantle it and leave bits strewn around the house without bothering you, and one for each of your 3 kids, and one for

Imagine you have an iPhone, and you rip CDs in iTunes to fill it up with copies of your music. Now, you want to go down to that place on the corner where they serve really good lunch. You put in your earbuds, crank up the ripped music, and start walking to lunch. As you proceed down the street, a lonely old man staggers and falls. You rush over to help him, and realize he's having a heart attack. You use your iPhone to call for emergency services, and wait with the man for help to arrive. While you are sitting on the sidewalk, and a greasy man in a cheap suit walks up and says "I'm a lawyer, and I'm going to sue you for not saving this man's life." Just then, a cop driving a Ford screeches to a halt, running over the lawyer, backing up, and hitting him again.

I can't believe this idiocy is still going on. This seems to be clearly format shifting for personal use which should be entirely legal. I hope this lawsuit gets tossed out of court and the plaintiff is ordered to pay the defendants legal costs.

Difference to previous lawsuits is that here they're going after the American Auto Industry - one of America's sacred cows. Expect to see these shysters going home with million-dollar legal fees and their asses handed back to them on silver platters.

Imagine it's 1987. The local "indie" record company and the local record shops get together and roll out (incredibly expensive) CD burners that can burn discs of whatever the customers want from the catalogue of that "indie" record company for the price of a normal albumn. Launch day happened and suddenly everyone's knee deep in lawyers and the police are chasing customers out of the shop - the parent record company called the cops on their partly owned "indie"

I had actually never heard of these trolls. According to wikipedia, "AARC is a non-profit US royalty collective, assembled by the US music industry in conjunction with the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, that protects the rights of featured artists and recording companies(sound recording copyright owners) both domestically and abroad in the areas of hometaping/private copy royalties and rental royalties"

The AHRA was basically DMCA 2.0; it created a government mandate that certain products must use DRM, made circumvention of that DRM illegal, and mandated that all the companies using the DRM must pay royalties to the AARC.

Lawyers grasping hard again: They are complaining about a small (by weight or cost) part of car that rarely is removed or operated outside of it. The primary purpose of the car is transportation, not to extract digital music. Even if the Jukebox is a paid optional extra, that doesn't change the primary purpose of the car!

So, the primary purpose of the CD system is ripping CDs is it? Not, for instance, listening to the radio, playing CDs, or even listening to the music I have previously ripped from CDs using the system AARC is complaining about? According to their argument that would have to be the case, even to the extent of ripping a CD and then only playing it back once, to meet the "primary purpo

Trust me, they made that argument back when CD Roms came out. They were almost made illegal because of it to. Lucky they were not, and likely had a lot to do with the advent of the internet.

At the time there was no internet, you had local BBS's. When CD roms came out, a lot of people couldn't afford them, so the BBS's got them and you could queue up for time on different CD roms that had different discs in them. Keep in mind a 100mb harddrive was HUGE at the time. A 600mb CD was unfathomable. You'd routinel

Neither side wants this to go to court, and both sides know it. The AARC wants a settlement they can point to for high pressure settlement letters to other defendants, and the car companies want a non-revokable license for these devices. I'd give it a 90%+ confidence that this will result in an undisclosed settlement within a year, and while we won't know the number they settle for, I'm guessing it won't be enough to make a blip on the car companies' quarterly reports.

As an American with an above average grasp of the US legal system thanks to a long time friend who is an attorney, I can tell you that anything can happen if this case goes to court. Should the AARC lose? Yes. But will they? Who knows? Juries aren't made up of people who understand technology. If Ford and GM's lawyers botch the case or the jury has quite a few members who are obsessed with punishing rules breakers, the AARC can win. I agree that it seems likely that an undisclosed settlement will be reached. The AARC probably knows that most likely it won't prevail so getting something is better than losing in court and getting nothing and GM and Ford would prefer not to take the risk that a crazy jury will rule against them and view a limited settlement as the best option available. Even having judges decide cases is no guarantee against craziness. I know of one case where a court was overruled by an appellate court who accused the original court of making up the law out of nothing on the case in question. My attorney friend told me that he agreed with the appellate court ruling but he'd never seen a court use that kind of language before in slapping down another court.

"As an American with an above average grasp of the US legal system thanks to a long time friend who is an attorney, I can tell you that anything can happen if this case goes to court. Should the AARC lose? Yes. But will they? Who knows? Juries aren't made up of people who understand technology."

So much for your knowledge. You do know that the car companies could ask for this to go in front of a judge instead of a jury, right? And that all it's going to take is a note of RIAA v Diamond and also a mentioning

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

The Act defines a "digital musical recording" as:

(5)(A) A “digital musical recording” is a material object —

(i) in which are fixed, in a digital recording format, only sounds, and material, statements, or instructions incidental to those fixed sounds, if any, and

(ii) from which the sounds and material can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

And this is different from itunes in what way? I have an ipod wired into my truck's sound system. (It's a feature of the stereo.) The (older style) ipod has an internal hard drive that contains music ripped from three crates of CDs via itunes. How is this different?

And how is this not fair use? The user is presumably the same person who bought the cd. Does the AARC expect me to buy it twice? (I know, stupid question.)

Wasn't this already decided by the courts as fair use? Consumers aren't expected to purchase recordings for each playback device. I think it has been decided that it's legal to purchase a CD and make copies for personnal use. That should cover copies to analog tapes and copies to files for mobile devices.

I participated in a forum with Lessig, having my question selected for somebody from RIAA legal to be answered:

What are we buying when we buy entertainment media? Is it a license to view/listen to the product, or is it just a copy of the title that we have limited rights to? That is, do we own the license to view/listen to the content in any format -- or when we buy a CD, are we just purchasing the format of the content?

Matt Oppenheim responds.

(C) [What are we buying when we buy entertainment media?]

When you buy a CD, you should feel free to consume the music. That means you should listen to that disc, and feel free to make a copy of that disc for your own use so that you can have a copy in your home and your office. You should feel free to copy it onto other formats, such as.mp3, so that you can listen to it on your computer. You should feel free to copy it to cassette.

The only time you run into problems is if you begin to distribute your copies to others.

The original event is no longer online. However, it appears to be archived at the forum I just linked. We get to transcode and backup our media, and we've always been able to do that. Of course, the DMCA makes circumvention an issue, but CD's really don't have that problem as they are essentially an open, raw audio format to begin with. In practical terms, they are not much different from tapes.

So we make mix CD's, we back up our masters, so the heat from the car doesn't ruin albums we might not be able to buy again, we transcode for our portable media player, or frankly the media player we made ourselves! Mix CD's to express our love for somebody else? Yeah, doing that is OK too.

What this means is we've always been able to make copies for friends. The answer above from the RIAA actually doesn't state this, and for obvious reasons, but the reality of things is clear. What that answer does state clearly is that we are just fine making a copy for the car. In fact, this is nicer than the backup CD, in that it's not really portable like a backup CD is.

Here's a notable question for you:

Say you archive your CD collection. Then you give the originals away. Ethics would have you get rid of the backups. But the law? No requirement at all. Doing this is shitty, but not something one is going to jail for.

People who are fans of recording artists who choose not to sell their music on Amazon MP3. For example, AC/DC and Garth Brooks are noted for their opposition to sales of downloadable singles. Other artists like the Beatles are exclusive to iTunes, which is fine if you use OS X or iOS but leaves, say, Android users behind.

1: Music formats used to change, and still do change. In the past it was ripping to whatever the device needed, (ATRAC3, WMA, MP3, AAC.) This is less of an issue now since the industry has standardized on AAC, but if I want FLAC or ALAC, I can always re-rip.

2: I like physical media. A pressed CD isn't going to be affected by malware, barring a clever flash of the firmware in a CD burner. Plus, I don't need much to play it.

No, from the letter of the law, this is bunk. The relevant tests make the claims an absolute joke. They are just hoping to cash in, and if they get anything close to their claims, it would probably be more money than the AHRA has brought in in it's entire lifetime.

No, but doesn't having 10GB of ripped Justin Beiber songs raise the resale value of a car by a few million dollars? That's money that rightfully belongs to the collection agencies, er, I mean artists. And just because sellers aren't collecting these millions of dollars is no excuse for them to get out of paying the collection agencies, er, artists.